Dell R730 with QLogic 2660 16Gb FC HBAs connected to a Brocade 300 8Gb FC Switch? Will it work?

Question

We have a standard shop with 3x Hypervisors running VMware vSphere 6.0.

The hypervisors are currently connected via 8Gb FC link to a Brocade 300 (8Gb FC) switch, which is then connected to our storage array via a 8Gb FC link (the array has 8Gb HBAs).

We are replacing one of our hypervisors and I want to spec it with 16Gb FC HBAs (R730).

As we replace our hypervisors/storage array over the next few years we want to gradually outfit our backend connectiity with 16Gb FC links.

Current setup is:

3x Hypervisors each with dual 8Gb FC HBAs connected to 2x Brocade 300 8GB FC Switches, which are then connected to our storage array's dual 8GB FC HBA controllers, this is to archieve dual path redudency from the host down to the array.

I will basically take out one of the hypervisors and replace it with a Dell R730 with dual 16Gb FC HBAs.

Will this continue to run happy? WIll the 16Gb HBAs on the server downgrade to 8Gb since they are connected to a 8Gb FC port on the Brocade?

Thanks for your help.

Answer 1

FC HBAs will auto-negotiate down 3 steps, so a 16Gb port can talk to another 16, an 8, or a 4. An 8Gb links can talk to another 8, a 4, or a 2. If you haven't changed anything on the switch, this should just work when you plug it in the first time. If it doesn't, you might need to log into the switch and fiddle with port settings. The Brocade command you'd want to look at is portcfgspeed, or in the GUI, there's a port settings window.